We use cookies on this website, including web analysis cookies. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. You have the right to opt out of web analysis at any time. Find out more about our cookie policy and how to opt out of web analysis.

Migrants encounter different fertility norms
while abroad, which they can bring back upon returning home

Elevator pitch

Demographic factors in migrant-sending countries
can influence international migration flows. But when migrants move across
borders, they can also influence the pace of demographic transition in their
countries of origin. This is because migrants, who predominantly move on a
temporary basis, encounter new fertility norms in their host countries and
then bring them back home. These new fertility norms can be higher or lower
than those in their country of origin. So the new fertility norms that
result from migration flows can either accelerate or slow down a demographic
transition in migrant-sending countries.

Key findings

Pros

The movement of migrants across
political borders can influence fertility in the country of
origin.

International migration can
influence fertility in either direction, depending on whether it
is higher or lower in the host country than in the country of
origin.

Returning migrants can bring home
the fertility norms they encountered while abroad.

Migrant couples often have more
children than non-migrant couples, e.g. Egyptian couples with a
past migration experience in other Arab countries have a higher
number of children than non-migrant couples do.

Cons

It is difficult to separate the
effects of the transfer of norms from the other effects of a
past migration experience, such as improvements in households’
economic conditions.

The decision to migrate (and return)
might be correlated with individual fertility preferences.

Egypt is the only country for which
evidence from household-level data on the transfer of fertility
norms controls for non-random selection into migration.

The possible multiplier effects on
non-migrants who encounter returnees have not yet been
explored.

Author's main message

When people move across borders, cultural norms,
values, and ideas are spread, and these can influence fertility choices both
abroad and back home. Returning migrants play a pivotal role in the spread
of fertility norms. But, the influence return migration can exert on
fertility in migrant-sending countries crucially depends on where the
migrants have been, such as Europe or the Persian Gulf (two regions with
vastly different fertility norms). The distribution of migrants across
alternative destinations responds to different factors, including the
options for legal admission in various countries. This in turn is shaped by
the immigration policies of the host countries. These options contribute to
some of the main social and economic effects of migration on migrants’
countries of origin and, ultimately, on their demographics.